When she woke up the next morning, the pain of the past day crashed down on her like a waterfall. She had fallen asleep curled up on the chair in the sitting room. Across the room, Enjolras was still asleep, sprawled out on the couch. Someone had given them both blankets during the night.
She rubbed her eyes. They were crusted with tears. She had come home and just sobbed. Grantaire had been her last link to Gavroche, the only person alive who had been so close to him, and now he was gone.
The idea of Grantaire being gone for good was almost impossible to comprehend. Elena had gone insane, sobbing and screaming as they tried to take her brother’s body away. She had broken down, explaining in a rush of tears that she had been borrowing money from Eponine’s father’s gang, and she hadn’t been able to pay them back, so they had planned to kill her. Eponine had told her not to go out alone, to come back with them, but Elena was refused, rushing off into the night.
She wondered what Grantaire had said to Enjolras. Neither of them had spoken on the walk home. Both had been lost in their own thoughts and sadness, too miserable to speak.
She stood up carefully. She realized that she was still wearing the blue dress, and that by now it was ruined. Blood and melted snow had left stains, and it had been torn during the fight with her father.
She walked back into her room, stripping off the dress as soon as she closed the door, and changing into her old skirt and shirt. Even the white blouse from Cosette had begun to feel familiar, even though the material was finer than anything that she had ever owned.
The window was open, one of the shutters banging against the wall. Outside it was pouring, the rain drenching the garden and the wind bending the plants.
Without a second thought, she climbed out. The garden was muddy and wet, but clean somehow. She hadn’t been out like this since the barricades, and somehow it felt freer.
She wasn’t sure where she would go, and she didn’t even care. For a moment, something in her just wanted her to leave – to get away from the city and her family and the deaths that haunted her here.
She was walking by the river when she saw the body. It was ruined, the face destroyed almost beyond recognition, the skin covered with a thousand bruises. The very sight of it made her feel as if she was going to throw up.
Elena.
She stumbled backwards, falling over a rock. Elena’s hand was gripped tightly around a necklace at her throat. Carefully, Eponine pulled her hand back, revealing a small gold locket. Inside was a drawing of Grantaire as a child and a sketch of a woman who she could only assume was Elena’s mother. She carefully removed the charm and put it carefully in her pocket, then ran from the body as fast as she could.
The walk back to the house seemed to take forever.
When she returned, the others were all sitting around a table. Tears dotted Cosette’s face, and Marius’s eyes were red. Enjolras’ face could have been carved from stone.
“Where were you?” he asked as she walked in. “It’s pouring out, and…”
“Elena’s dead,” she said, cutting him off. “I think…” She swallowed, not wanting to say the words. “I think the gang caught up to her.”
“Christ,” Enjolras muttered, beginning to pace back and forth. For a minute, she thought he was going to put his fist through a wall. “That bastard.”
“I know,” she muttered. “I… we need to get rid of them. Kill them, or something. I don’t know. But… they just… they need to be gone. They need to end[K1] .”
He nodded grimly. Marius looked between the two of them, confused. “What are you two talking about?”
“Getting rid of my father, somehow,” she said softly. The words didn’t cause her any regret. “And the rest of his group. Brujon especially.” She wanted Brujon dead more than anyone. He had killed Grantaire. He had killed that gardener, so many years ago. He had hurt her, ruined her life, made her want to kill herself. If she could only do one thing in her life, it was kill him. She needed him to die, him and her father both, and if the others died with him, it could only be a bonus. Brujon. Babet. Claquesous. Thenardier. The names were a list in her mind, a death sentence for the four men. She wondered if she would have let Montparnasse live, or Azelma. If Azelma had been the one to kill Grantaire, would she have killed her as well?
And her mother… she couldn’t kill her mother, but without the money brought in by the gang she would starve. And in that moment, she realized that she didn’t care. The woman had stood idly by as she and her younger sister were beaten for no reason, as they starved and wasted away in front of her. The woman had never shown any form of affection towards them, and she realized that she didn’t care what happened to her anymore.
She sighed heavily. “We’ll kill them,” she whispered. Enjolras whispered, surprised by the harshness of her words. “All of them.”
